Deep Clean Week 10: Smudge and Peeve Hunt and Elimination

Hello!

This week isn’t an off week, but it IS a lighter one, but that break serves a purpose. You’re going to use a little mental energy to plan for next week. (Just in case you weren’t consciously aware: using your mental and emotional energy IS work.)

Welcome to Week 10 of The Deep Clean Challenge: The Smudge and Peeve Hunt. This three-week stretch, the digital clean-up, the smudge hunt, and project week, is my favorite.

If you’re just joining us, so far, as part of The Deep Clean Challenge, we have:

Why are we cleaning up smudges and smears for today’s Deep Clean Challenge?

Dinginess, for lack of a better word, tends to sneak up on us. It happens one fingerprint or smudge at a time until one day we’re wondering why picking up the clutter doesn’t seem to make as much of a difference as it used to.

What do we need for today’s Deep Clean Challenge?

For today’s main goal, you need just two things:

• a roll of paper towels or a rag
• your favorite all-purpose cleaner.

When I say all-purpose cleaner, I mean anything from a 50:50 vinegar solution to Method’s Pink Grapefruit Spray to dilute Pinesol. What you use in your home is your choice. Just choose one, we’re on a mission.

How do we start the smudge hunt?

Pick a room, and look around. Find all the smudges and fingerprints. Spray your rag and wipe them away.

Where do these smudges and fingerprints live? Door jams, around doorknobs, switch plates, cupboards if you have white ones, banisters, stair railings, etc. Anywhere anything light-colored exists in your home that is anywhere around the waist or shoulder height of any person in your home, there are likely finger and handprints.

Speaking of in your home, if you have pets, check the walls and corners where they like to hide. If they have any oils in their coats, you might want to give the wall and baseboard in those corners a quick wipe, too. (Remember to test before using anything on paint to ensure you won’t cause damage.)

This project shouldn’t take too long unless you are very lucky indeed, and in that case, may we come over for hors d’ oeuvres in the garden some afternoon?

No matter what, you’ll be surprised at how much better your home will look after a round of smudge patrol. That’s how things build up in our lives, a little at a time. If you do the rinse and repeat on this series, yes, there will be more to wipe away, but probably not as many, and it won’t take as long.

But, you also mentioned peeves; what do you mean?

We all have something in our home that annoys us. Maybe it’s just us, but there is something.

Today while you are smudge hunting, find ONE thing that you can fix for next week’s assignment. Now, there is a catch, and it needs to be something that you can fix within your two-hour Home-Ec101 project block. (I really don’t want you deciding that I meant that you needed to turn your home into an open-floor concept.)

Potential peeves:

• squeaky doors that need to be lubricated
• a set of broken blinds
• a glass shower door with serious hard water build-up
• a broken toilet handle
• a lightbulb that’s particularly annoying to replace is out again
• the banister where your teen boys insist on dismounting the stairs like it’s the Olympic vaulting event has paint peeling (oh, just me?)
• a missing drawer pull and you’re tired of prying the drawer open

What is something that you have just been tolerating? Take a walk around your home like you were a home inspector.

When you find your project. Write it down. Do you know how to fix it or are you going to need to research it? Find a video on YouTube and then watch another in case there is a better way. Do you need to order any parts or tools? Do that now, so they’ll be here in time.

What are you going to accomplish next week? I’d love to hear about it?